Concentric Zone Model

The concentric zone model was developed in the 1920’s through the work of sociologists Robert Park and Ernest Burgess (1925). They argued that in urban settlements, competition for land often results in the physical division of people into different economic classes (Brown 2002:1). Their main argument stated that population demographics changed as one moved further out from the city center. The center is often described as the central business or factory district. From this central nucleus, there are up to five concentric rings radiating from it, each containing a different social class (see Figure 2.2). The further one moves from the center, the more dispersed the population density becomes (Logan and Semyonov 1980:94). In the model proposed by Park and Burges, the process of urban development and settlement distribution is in a state of constant flux. For example, affluent family groups have often been observed moving to more desirable areas, located away from the center. Likewise, immigrant communities of lower economic statuses have been observed moving to closer proximities of the central business district (Logan and Semyonov 1980:95).

Figure 2.2: Concentric Zone Model (after Sorenson 2010, Figure 4.4)

This model was developed in order to explain postindustrial cities, such as Chicago, and is considered by some to be inappropriate for pre-industrial urban settlements, such as those built by the ancient Maya (Smith 2010:138). It is, however, functional when applied to these sites as a loose analogy (Smith 2010:137). A simplified version of the model was eventually developed for preindustrial sites by Sjoberg (1960). In this version, there are only three for four concentric rings which divide the major central complex, the elite class, common folk, and those residing along the periphery of the site, refer to Figure 2.2 (Smith 2010:138, 148). Before the creation of

any of these models, the first account of this form of social organization amongst the Maya was detailed by the Bishop Diego de Landa’s (1937[1566]) and stated,

Their dwelling place was as follows: in the middle of the town were their temples with beautiful plazas, and all around the temples stood the houses of the lords and the priests, and then the most important people. Thus came the houses of the richest and of those who were held in highest estimation nearest to these, and at the outskirts of the town were the houses of the lower class.

Based on the description by Diego de Landa and the models provided by Park and Borges and Sjoberg, archaeologists can conceive of the postindustrial business and factory district as the central ceremonial complex at a Maya site (Coe 1965; Tozzer 1941:62-63). According to Coe (1965) these complexes are often located near or surrounding natural features such as a river, cenote, or cave.

In Mesoamerican studies, this model is largely based on the assumption that social

elements play a key role in the location of a household. In this case, the most attractive real estate is adjacent to the spaces in which religious and ritual activities were being performed. With this in mind, a site can be perceived as having highly compacted inner rings surrounding the

monumental architecture within more dispersed rings of settlement the further from the core one gets. If Conil conforms to this settlement pattern the largest structures should be found near the site center along with the highest density of settlements. .

Examples of the application of this model have been observed at a number of sites such as Tikal, La Milpa, and Caracol (Hutson et al. 2008:16). Further, this model has been applied to the Classic site of Dzibilchaltun, located in the Yucatan Peninsula. Extensive work has found that the majority of the monumental and vaulted architecture at the site is located within 600 m of the central cenote at the site (Kurjack 1974:191). In addition to the central area, there are two other distinctive concentric zones at the site, each with their own sets of neighborhoods (Kurjack

1974:193). Although Diego de Landa (1937) described other Maya settlement patterns, which do not follow the concentric zone model, it seems that this is the dominant model used to describe ancient Maya cities (Smyth et al. 1995:329).

Despite its popularity in Mesoamerican archaeology, there are a number of criticisms of the concentric zone model. Smyth et al. (1995:330) argue that features other than architecture need to be considered when attributing this model to a site. They offer the suggestion that artifact densities and functions can be analyzed alongside architectural remains in order to determine who exactly (be it an elite or a manufacturer) was living in specific parts of a site, and for what purpose each zone served (Smyth et al. 1995:331). Levi (2002) shares the same sentiments of Smyth et al. (1995) but feels that observing activity areas and the artifacts relating to them may not completely “capture temporal fluctuations of a different order or on a finer scale than architectural studies” (Levi 2002:122). Based on her work at the Late Classic site of San

Estavan, in Belize, household location appears to have been largely influenced by nuances within the local environment rather than the desire to settle closer to the ceremonial center (Levi

2002:127).

Other critiques of the concentric zone model include the fact that it completely ignores the natural topography of the landscape. The model expresses the concentric zones as neat circular rings situated around an urban center, however the natural environment is not a flat backdrop against which people organize themselves in an orderly fashion (Torrens 2000:14). This topic will be further discussed below in the ‘Landscape Archaeology’ section of this chapter.